Of Cold Appeareances and Warm Hearts - rewrite
by MedievalScribe-FormerClearEyes
Summary: Title and rating may change. When King Agnarr and Queen Iduna from Arendelle stroke a deal with Mother Earth to conceive a child, they had no idea what this decision would entail for their family. Follow Elsa as she braves a court of extraordinary beings who have their hidden agenda and enjoy using the world as their chessboard.
1. Prologue

Of Cold Appearances and Warm Hearts - Rewrite

by ClearEyes

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**Author's Note: To all old and new followers of "Of Cold Appearances and Cold Hearts", I wrote an apology and disclaimer at the very end of the story. Please, go read it. As an abridged version, I went back to it and I realized that the message it gives is not one I agree with and not one I want to promote. Hence, this rewrite of the story. Some people reached out and said they would be very sad to see that fic erased, though; so this is the compromise. I will rewrite and re-publish the story as if it was new but under the original name. **

**The objective of this rewrite is to paint a more realistic picture of healthy social relationships, and I will draw on my own experience as I've relearned what healthy relationships look like. Bottom line, you can't help someone who can't be helped, despite how much you love them. So, this story will hopefully be more character based rather than plot based. In order to achieve this objective, some characters will be different than in their previous iteration of this story.**

**Trigger warnings: This story will deal with emotional manipulation and abuse and neglect. If there is anything else, I'll write it at the beginning of the chapters.**

**At the end of the chapter, I will give some details as to what I changed of the story. This story will be cross published in AO3.**

**New readers do not have to go read the old version. As I said before, I'm not proud of its message, but some people might be sad to see it go so I'll leave it there for them.**

**Disclaimer: Frozen belongs to Disney and Rise of the Guardians belongs to Dreamworks. Anything you might recognize doesn't belong to me.**

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Prologue

The queen sat in front of the fireplace as tears silently rolled down her cheeks. Her shoulders were shaking as she tried to suppress her sobs. Her chamber maids were busy, changing blood stained sheets into clean, pristine ones, as if that could also take away the queen's grief and shame.

"I'm not worthy of being your queen," she sobbed, hiding her face in her hands. This caused her frantic husband to finally stop his pacing and look at her.

"Don't say that," he pleaded, putting a hand on her shoulder, which she immediately shrugged off. He didn't try again.

"This is the third miscarriage this year," the queen spat, angry at herself for failing to carry a child to term. The king resumed his pacing.

"We just haven't tried hard enough," he argued, although it looked like he was trying to convince himself more than his wife, "we can still go and ask them."

The queen half turned from where she was watching the dancing flames with a frown upon her face.

"You're not angry at me?" she asked.

"Of course not," the king answered with a sigh.

"But you are disappointed," the queen retorted.

"Of course I am, just like you," the king replied, "but not in you."

The queen sighed deeply once again, "Maybe I'm just not meant to be a mother."

"Nonsense," the king said firmly, "tomorrow I'll ride to the trolls. They'll know what to do."

"I want to come with you."

"No, you must rest Iduna," the king practically begged.

"It's my body, and if the trolls can do anything, I want to know exactly what it will be."

They stared into each other's eyes for the first time that night in confrontation, but neither seemed willing to compromise. Finally, the king gave in.

"Fine, but you must first consult the physician," he said.

"I will," the queen promised, grabbing the king's hand. The simply gesture reassured him, as well as her, that they would be okay. They had to be.

* * *

The physician advised the queen to rest, so their quest to find the trolls was delayed for a couple of days. Iduna was growing restless, but the king declared that her health was paramount before they could go out and venture into the mountains. When she was finally deemed healthy enough for the trip, the royals had their horses saddled and left the city in the dead of the night.

They arrived at a clearing they had only heard of in legends and children stories, but much to their chagrin, it was empty. They only thing there were these particularly lumpy boulders.

"They're not here," the queen cried, dismayed, tears springing to her eyes.

The king shushed her, much too aware that they were vulnerable to an attack. Their horses started moving restlessly, making it hard for them to control them. Queen Iduna almost fell off her horse in her effort to calm her mare.

The reason for their restlessness soon became evident, as one by one the boulders sprung to life and one in particular rolled their way until it stopped mere inches away from the horses' hooves. The king, ignorant to the customs which were acceptable with the mountain trolls, dismounted his horse and tried to appear harmless.

"We seek council with the trolls of this mountain," the king announced, not betraying an ounce of the nerves eating at him.

"I am the chief of our humble tribe," the eldest looking troll, the same one who'd rolled over to their horses, replied.

"We are looking for something that will help my wife carry a child to term," King Agnarr stated, though not unkindly.

"I'm sure your human physician can do better than us," the chief retorted without missing a beat.

"His remedies aren't working," the queen then intervened, not quite able to hide the pleading note in her voice, "we are asking for… magic."

The troll looked at them in silence for so long that the royals started to feel uncomfortable. Maybe this was the troll's way of telling them that they were beyond help?

"Please," the queen continued, "we know your people and your customs are ancient. You must know of a way to help us."

"Indeed, we do," the chief replied, startling the royals, "but help such as this requires a steep price."

"We are willing to pay anything you ask for," the king immediately supplied, "we can have carts with gold delivered here first thing in the morning."

"You insult us by offering us your gold, human," a troll to the side snarled at them, looking fierce, "we do not need your gold, nor your silver, nor your horses nor carriages."

"What is it you want then? Whatever it is, if it's in my power to give you, consider it yours," the king begged.

The chief pondered the royals request a few more moments in silence, "It is not us who can help you, but we know someone with powers unrivaled by anyone and whose knowledge is vaster than ours. However, she will demand a hefty price, and it will not be gold or jewels. Do you still wish to continue your endeavors?"

The king and queen looked uneasily at each other. They wanted a child, but would they have to sacrifice their lives for the baby? Would they need to forfeit the throne? Was it worth it? They seemed to have come to a conclusion, however irrational it might have seemed.

"We do," they replied in unison.

The chief nodded softly, "I will go summon her, then. Please, wait here. Everyone else, clear out."

The trolls in the clearing obeyed immediately, as if they were chased by the devil himself. The chief of their tribe disappeared in the bushes, leaving the royal couple alone. The queen leaned down on her horse, closer to the king.

She asked in a whisper, afraid of disturbing the silence, "Who do you think it is?"

The king held his wife's hand, "I don't know."

They didn't say anything else, for at that moment the trees seemed to part and make way for something… someone. She was a woman, or at least, looked like one. She was as tall as at to reach the top of the trees with her hands; her skin was the color of the earth and her eyes glowed green. Her hair was orange, reminding the queen of a particularly beautiful sunset, and it cascaded down her back in waves. She seemed to be looking for something, when their eyes fell on the couple.

"Oh," she muttered, with the voice a thousand singing birds, before she waved her hand. In a swirl of multicolored leaves, she disappeared and reappeared in front of them looking more… human. At the very least, she now was as tall as the king. Her eyes were distant and cold. She asked in that weird cacophony that was heir voice, "are you the humans seeking my council?"

The king and queen bowed, feeling overwhelmed by the sheer power this being's presence had on them. They found themselves unable to speak.

"I am Mother Earth. Do you vow not to speak of this meeting to anybody?" she asked.

"We do," the king answered, albeit a bit shakily.

"Very well. What is it you need?" Mother Earth asked.

"We wish to have a child," the queen answered.

"Is that all?" Mother Earth asked, as if they were asking for a couple of coins.

"Our remedies aren't working, so we turn to you," the queen continued, debating whether she should add _your majesty_ at the end. She was, after all, in the presence of very powerful royalty.

"Is the problem conceiving or carrying the baby to term?" Mother Earth asked then.

"Carrying the baby to term."

"Very well," Mother Earth nodded, "I will create a potion that will strengthen your body, and that of your baby. You will find it in your chambers when the time is right and you must take it immediately, is that understood?"

"Yes, your majesty," the couple replied without missing a bit.

Mother Earth grimaced, as if she didn't like the title they had addressed her with. However, they were only mortals, so she wouldn't make the earth swallow them just yet.

"As a word of warning, the babe might be different," Mother Earth continued, "she might develop magic, or not. If so, you will have to deal with her accordingly."

"Her?" the queen asked, desperate to believe yet refusing to get her hopes too high.

"What do you ask from us in return?" the king asked barely a second later.

"For now, just know that when the time comes, I will request something from you. You must comply, or the consequences will be dire," Mother Earth said cryptically before disappearing in a whirlwind of leaves and dirt.

Once they were alone, the couple chuckled. They looked at each other, and crashed in a tight embrace together.

"Let's go home," the king said, caressing his wife cheek and remounting his horse. It appeared that they had hope after all.

* * *

Just as Mother Earth told them, when Queen Iduna discovered she was pregnant four months later, she found the potion on top of her vanity. The small vial was filled with a bluish liquid and she downed it in one go. The first thing she noticed was that it was cold. In fact, she felt as if she had swallowed ice just collected from the mountains despite being liquid. The second thing she realized was that she felt more energized, and the nauseas that had been plaguing her disappeared. She also felt incredibly hungry, so she asked for her chamber maids to bring her something to eat.

That's how the king found his wife; sitting in her antechambers with a tray full of fresh fruit, as well as some bread and cheese, while her ladies in waiting kept her company. Just one look at her told him everything he needed to know. King Agnarr was thrilled; his wife was pregnant and this time it looked as if it would be okay. They were going to have a baby. Immediately, he commissioned the best carpenters and painters to set up the nursery in one of the chambers closest to their own.

News of the queen's pregnancy spread and Arendelle rejoiced. Throughout the kingdom there were celebrations that lasted over a month. The people were excited, and the air was vibrating with anticipation for the new prince or princess. Life went on.

A healthy baby girl was born to the royal family in the middle of a blizzard that would become infamous for the damages it caused; while the people were used to the frosty winters in Arendelle, nothing could have prepared them for this. The king and queen worried what the cold weather could do to their newborn child, but the baby, who they named Elsa, seemed to thrive despite the low temperatures and soon it became spring. Everyone loved Princess Elsa. Her parents dotted on her and the servants smiled when the baby babbled to herself on the crib. The princess was presented to the kingdom and soon, even the bakers were making pastries named _Elsa_ in honor of the princess.

For the first few months of her life, the princess didn't show any signs of being different, a fact that made the queen and king exhale in relief. They relaxed too soon, though. On the princess first birthday, when the queen went to see her beautiful, perfect princess, she found the baby playing with snow of all things! White, fluffy snow that littered the entire crib. She had half a mind to yell at the servants who decided to put it there and almost cause the princess to catch her death, but first she needed to dry her baby and make sure she was warm enough.

As soon as the baby was wrapped up in warm clothes and at least two blankets, the queen placed her in her basinet while the crib was cleaned and dried. Much to her surprise, when she turned around from talking to the servants, the baby was playing with snow… again. The baby was making it snow into the basinet. The queen's heart raced; this was the magic Mother Earth was talking about. She picked up the baby and went to the king, telling him of her discoveries.

"It's impossible," the king attempted to dismiss it as female paranoia, but then the baby, seemingly bored with what the adults were doing, made it snow again. The king had to swallow his words and admit that he'd been wrong. Their child had magical powers over snow of all things.

The first course of action was to limit the amount of people who interacted with the princess, at least until she learned to control it. Her nursemaid would constantly be with the princess when her parents couldn't, but other than that, they didn't want anyone else to know. They were scared. Their fears were not assuaged, and only grew, when Elsa started to freeze all the toys she played with. Everything she touched, sooner or later, ended up frozen. The royal couple started to wonder about the future, and how they would deal with this extraordinary child.

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**Author's Note: The prologue, story wise, is very similar to the previous one. I have changed Mother Earth's character to fit the purpose of this new story. Writing wise I believe to have improved, and only old readers will be able to tell me how much. There's more dialogue and less exposition, I hope. I also hope there are less grammar mistakes from the previous story.**

**I hope you like it, but if you don't, don't throw hate at me: simply stop reading.**


	2. Chapter One

**Disclaimer: Frozen belongs to Disney and Rise of the Guardians belong to Dreamworks. Anything you might recognize doesn't belong to me.**

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Chapter One

The king and queen never told anyone about the deal they made with Mother Earth. The few people who knew about Elsa's magical powers were told that someone in the family had had those powers too, but that they were very rare and not threatening. Three years after Elsa's birth, a second princess was born. The king and queen were elated, and named their second daughter Anna.

Princess Elsa loved her sister. At the beginning, when she'd been born, she hadn't understood why her parents didn't spend so much time with her anymore. She felt sad, and angry at the new baby. However, once Princess Anna started walking and Elsa saw how much the baby liked her, Elsa forgot all about being jealous of her baby sister. Elsa, to keep her sister happy, made it snow for her and they would play with it for hours.

Elsa never thought she could hurt her sister, but she did once when Anna was four. Her powers stopped being fun, and now they scared her very much. After all, she had hurt the person she loved more than anything in the whole wide world. Little Princess Elsa decided to keep Anna safe, even if it meant that Elsa couldn't play with her anymore. Everyday, however, Anna came knocking at her door and asked to play with her, to build a snowman, to ride a bicycle, and a few times Elsa was tempted. She was very lonely, only ever seeing her nursemaid, until the princess outgrew her old nanny and she stopped seeing her nursemaid as well. But she had to keep Anna safe.

As she grew older, Elsa's powers grew with her. Elsa didn't want them anymore. Her room was perpetually frozen, as her toys, and she couldn't find a way to thaw the ice that crept over everything. She didn't dare ask for more. On her ninth birthday, the king gifted Elsa with a pair of gloves, and they seemed to work just fine. As long as Elsa's bare hands weren't touching anything, nothing would freeze. They were scratchy and hindered the movement of her hands, but she would never be seen without them. She would go to sleep and wake up with the same mantra repeating in her head: conceal, don't feel, don't let them know.

Still, Elsa tried to keep tabs on Anna, watching as her little sister played outside sometimes, or if maybe she could risk peeking out her bedroom door. It was better for everyone, though, that Elsa and Anna remained separate. The servants seemed puzzled by this development however, as very few of them were aware of Elsa's powers, and the people wondered if something had happened to Princess Elsa, as she was very rarely seen outside the walls of the palace.

By the time Elsa turned fifteen, she had mastered the art of keeping her face carefully neutral. All her emotions went to a box in the back of her mind that locked with a key she threw in the ocean because the princess realized that when she was feeling intense emotions her powers would flare up. Her parents were proud of her, Elsa could tell, and it made her feel that one day she would be able to participate in society normally, without her powers bothering her. Her father, the king, began to allow her to seat in and observe council meetings. The court always marveled at how proper and well-behaved Princess Elsa was, as opposed to the troublemaker Anna who was always loud and clunky.

"Princess Elsa will make a fine queen one day," they said. Those times it was hard for Elsa to reign her temper in.

One fateful day when Elsa was eighteen, the king and queen announced that they would go across the sea on a diplomatic mission. Elsa would be regent until her parents returned. Elsa's anxiety went through the roof, and she tried by all means to convince her parents not to go. She wasn't ready, people would discover her secret, Anna could get hurt, the nobles wouldn't listen to her. It was all to no avail; his parents left with little to no hesitation after a short farewell to the princesses.

The royals had been a total of two days aboard their ship, when they received a most unexpected visit. After supper, they were getting ready for bed. Queen Iduna was writing a letter for Elsa, hoping to send a messenger with it in the morning. All of the sudden, the sealed windows burst open, bringing water and foam into their cabin. A humanoid figure took shape from the water and soon she had closed the windows shut again.

Mother Earth materialized in the form of a pale woman with flowing white hair. She had a blue gown that made her look like the embodiment of sea foam. Her expression was stony, and her eyes gleamed with intelligence and cunning.

The royals made a curtsy.

"Mother Earth," King Agnarr addressed the higher being, "we were not expecting you."

"Clearly," Mother Earth replied, eyeing them in their sleeping clothes with barely disguised disdained, "it is time to collect the debt you owe me."

Knowing they had little choice in the matter, the royals exchanged an uneasy look before the queen asked, "What do you require of us?"

"Your daughter," Mother Earth replied without missing a beat, leaving the royal couple shocked.

"Pardon me?" the queen said, reeling.

"I rendered you a service without which your daughter would not exist. Now, as payment, I want you to hand her over to me. You have another child, is not like I'm heartless," Mother Earth clarified with a look that clearly said she shouldn't be bothered dealing with mortals.

The queen was at loss of words. What could she say? How could she refuse? Much to her surprise, she didn't have to; the king did.

"Our daughter is not for sale," King Agnarr declared, "you must request something else."

"I must not do anything, mortal," Mother Earth said, "you requested my help. Did I not tell you about the price you would have to pay?"

"If we had known you would demand the baby you helped bring into the world, we wouldn't have complied," Queen Iduna said this time.

"It is much too late for woulds and shoulds. You complied, now you owe me a debt, and if it isn't paid, the consequences will be dire."

No one said anything afterwards, they just stood and stared at each other. Neither willing to give in, but all of them too stubborn to back off. Mother Earth resumed the conversation half a second later.

"I want to know about your daughter," she said, as if she hadn't asked them to just trade Elsa away like cattle, "does she have magic?"

For a minute, the royals exchanged a look. Finally, seemingly deciding that answering Mother Earth's questions was their best shot, the king spoke.

"She does."

"Over what?" Mother Earth continued, and at the puzzled look from the royals, sighed and explain with contempt, "over what element of nature can she perform her magic? Water? Perhaps fire?"

"Ice," the king answered, "and snow."

"I see. And tell me, what has been done to train her? To polish her power?" The royals, again, looked totally clueless and Mother Earth was losing her patience, "I'll take that as nothing. You see, when a child is born with magical prowess, the child needs to be taught on how to best use it. Otherwise, she could be dangerous to herself and the people around her."

"Is that why you want to take her away from us?" Queen Iduna intervened, her hand clutched to her chest.

Mother Earth nodded, "I believe it's for the best. A mortal kingdom is no place for such powers. Soon, people will start to fear her, and you know what happens to the royal family when the people stop trusting them with their safety."

The thinly veiled reference to civil war wasn't lost on the royals. Could it be she really had Elsa's best interest at heart? They very much doubted her intentions were pure, but if Elsa would be safe, maybe it was their best bet.

"Excellent, I see you've come to the same conclusion I have," Mother Earth pipped in, apparently having read their thoughts, leaving the royals feeling exposed and vulnerable.

"Will we see her again, if we give you guardianship over her?" Queen Iduna asked.

"I'm afraid it wouldn't be safe," Mother Earth resisted the urge to roll her eyes and did her best to appear sympathetic to their plight, "but rest assured, she will be safe with me. Now, you only need to repeat after me: _I, Queen Iduna of Arendelle, disavow Princess Elsa from my care and hand her over to Mother Earth to care for as she sees fit_," she then turned to the king, "you will have to say the same thing but with your name instead."

The royals exchanged an uneasy look, clearly uncomfortable.

"I don't want to cast my daughter aside," the queen retorted, "perhaps it could be rephrased."

Mother Earth seemed to be considering it, "You must understand, a magical oath like this would give me total guardianship of Elsa. Anything else would make the transition partial and she could be in danger."

The king's brow creased, "How do you know her name? I don't remember telling you."

"Of course you did," Mother Earth said with a wave of her hand, "now, please repeat after me…"

"No," the king interrupted, "we didn't tell you our daughter's name. We haven't talked to you in over eighteen years. You are not telling us the truth."

Queen Iduna rushed to her husband's side trying to placate him just as Mother Earth's patience finally snapped. Mother Earth's demeanor turned icy, and the temperature in the cabin dropped. It wasn't the king of cold Elsa would display as a child, either; this one was evil, full of ill intent, causing the royal couple to instinctively recoil. Her voice rose in a crescendo, the chirping birds in her voice merging into one sound too eerie to recall.

"I do not need to tell you puny mortals the truth. I wanted to be civil and not leave your youngest child an orphan, but you really give me no choice. There are other ways to acquire guardianship over a magical child, especially if her parents are dead."

Mother Earth shattered the window and swooped out with the wind that came rushing in. For one second, there was peace. The silence could be cut with a butter knife. Then, thunder roared like Thor himself had a vendetta against the world, and the previously calm sea became agitated. Storm clouds gathered above the ship and in a ten-mile radius around it; heavy rain poured down from the sky, and the lightning looked eerily like the gleam they had caught in Mother Earth's eye.

Needless to say, they never returned home.

* * *

News reached of the shipwreck a week after the fact. One sole survivor, the captain of the ship, found adrift off the coast of Denmark, was rescued by fishermen two days after being shipwrecked. He requested an audience with the king, and retold his woes. He identified himself as the captain of King Agnarr and Queen Iduna's ship, which immediately granted him a room with the servants, and a good warm meal from the castle's kitchens. The Denmark royals were understandably distraught at the news of Arendelle's royals' death. An hour later, a letter was on its way to Arendelle.

When the letter arrived, Elsa was the first to read it. Fortunately for her she was in her chambers, so when her powers exploded and coated everything with a two-inch layer of ice, no one was in the vicinity. She cried herself hoarse, cursing the unfairness of it all. She then called the royal advisor and tasked him with delivering the news. Elsa didn't leave her room for a week.

Anna came to knock on her door everyday of that week, but Anna couldn't find it in herself to open it. How could she bridge the gap between them after years of deliberately pushing her sister away? Besides, Elsa was in no shape to even attempt to control her powers, so Anna was in danger as long as Elsa was close by. So, Elsa remained locked away in her room, barely eating and plagued by nightmares.

Exactly one week after her parent's funeral, Elsa saw the impossible. A boy? No, man, with white hair and as pale as the clouds, was floating around, jumping from roof to roof, bringing with him little snowflakes that slowly drifted to the ground. She stared. She didn't even register opening her window until she was face to face with this mysterious being.

"You can see me?" the man asked, with a surprisingly deep voice for one who looked so young.

"Yes," Elsa stuttered. His smile turned blinding, and Elsa noticed that her teeth sparkled the same way freshly fallen snow would on Christmas morning, "who are you?"

"Jack Frost at your service," the man answered with a mock bow, and Elsa, caught by surprise, couldn't help but chuckle.

Since then, Jack came to visit her every day, and he would always help her train with her powers. She confided in him one night after a particularly gruesome council meeting where she felt tempted to just freeze everyone of the old men in the room.

"I almost lost my temper, and that would have been bad," Elsa finished her tale.

"Why?" Jack asked, tilting his head just so, giving the impression he was ten years old instead of a hundred.

"Because of my powers. They are dangerous," Elsa confessed in a low voice, deeply ashamed, "I'm dangerous."

"You're only dangerous as long as you believe it. Don't let your powers control you," Jack advised, and Elsa felt much better.

Her nightmares hadn't stopped, though, and at least three times a week she would wake up in cold sweat and calling for her mom who would never again be able to answer her call.

Soon, Elsa settled into a routine of sorts. She would wake up in the middle of the night, and, unable to go back to sleep, would attempt to reach Jack. More often than not the man showed up and they talked. When the sun was relatively high, she would get dressed and go about her duties for that day. She avoided Anna like the plague. Then, right after sunset, she would go into her chambers and train with Jack before falling asleep for maybe four hours before waking up again.

Three years flew by before she noticed, and her birthday came right in the middle of winter. Jack Frost was there and gifted her with a necklace; the necklace had an ice drop that looked like a sapphire, and Jack told her it would keep her safe. She felt warm and tingly all over. She didn't catch the rueful look the man had just before he left.

Jack Frost then stopped coming by, despite Elsa's best attempts. Her coronation was drawing near, her stress levels were at an all time high and her nightmares increased. She was lucky if she could get a couple of hours of sleep that night. All that, coupled with Jack's absence, made her feel terribly lonely and abandoned. Of all the people she knew, he understood her the most, but now he had left.

The night before her coronation she had her worst nightmare yet. She saw her parents, accusing her, disowning her, and telling her how bad a queen she would be. She saw Anna leaving her, and in her distress, Elsa's powers lashed out and killed her sister. She saw Jack's retreating back, but regardless of how much she called for him, he never came.

She woke up panting, tears drying up on her cheeks, and with a very bad feeling in her gut. But she had to press forward; after all, it was coronation day. She got dressed and stared from her window as the gates opened and her people came flocking in. Unsurprisingly, Elsa caught a glimpse of Anna leaving the confines of the palace, and Elsa got her first reprieve of the day. It was going to be stressful enough without her sister nagging her.

The ceremony at the church passed with very little fanfare, at least, to her. Elsa was more focused on breathing in and out than on the words leaving the priest's mouth. When it was time to swear for the protection of the kingdom, Elsa repeated the words she had rehearsed for months. She practiced them a couple of times in front of Jack, and she tried not to let that memory hurt her. It was with great relief that she finally let go of the slowly freezing scepter and sphere in order to put on her gloves again.

She thought she might just survive the night when Anna came to her with the most preposterous news. She thought wrong. She thought oh, so wrong. Apparently, and completely out of the blue, Anna thought she wanted to marry Prince Hans of the Southern Isles. She had heard of him, of course, everyone had, and sensible people tended to say away from him. Anna was, seemingly, not a sensible person.

"Marriage?" Elsa asked, barely believing her ears. She had to be dreaming; this had to be a nightmare, "I'm sorry, I'm confused."

Anna then rambled on about wedding preparations and ice cream; then she stopped, and looked at Hans with such innocent and pure adoration that Elsa knew she could not allow this marriage to take place. "Wait," Anna breathed, "will we live here?"

"Here?" Elsa asked, feeling a bit out of breath. What was going on?

"Absolutely," Prince Hans of the Southern Isles replied, looking at Anna with the same kind of adoration the princess had in her eyes, but something about his tone set Elsa off. He was very eager… a little too eager, in the queen's opinion.

"Anna-" Elsa tried to interject, only for the princess to carry on with her ramblings.

"Oh, we can invite all twelve of your brothers to stay with us-"

"What? No. No, no, no, no…"

"of course we have the room…" Anna continued, oblivious to her sister's attempt to say something, until finally, Elsa raised her voice just a tiny bit, using the tone she usually reserved for particularly petty lords during council meetings.

"Wait, slow down; no one's brothers' are staying here, no one is getting married," Elsa declared, firm, like a queen. However, it almost killed the queen to see the hurt in Anna's eyes.

"Wait, what?"

Elsa wanted to find a whole to hide in and never come out again. Still, she pressed on, "May I talk to you, please? Alone?"

Anna dug in her metaphorical heels, "No, whatever you have to say, you can say it to both of us."

"Fine. You can't marry a man you just met."

"You can if it's true love."

Elsa sighed, not even bothering to hide her disbelieving expression, "Anna, what do you know about true love?"

"More than you. All you know is how to shut people out."

The sensation was like a punch to the gut. No, it was more like a sharp knife slicing through a piece of meat like butter, only that the piece of meat was Elsa's heart. It was so intense, that Elsa couldn't help the small gasp which escaped her; and yet, she couldn't blame Anna. After all, her words were true, and Elsa had done her best efforts to push away Anna since they were kids, more so after their parents died. Elsa prayed for patience.

"You asked for my blessing, but my answer is no. Now, excuse me," Elsa tried to leave, but of course the prince had to intervene.

"Your majesty, if I may be-"

"No, you may not," Elsa interrupted. She couldn't deal with this now, "I think you should go."

Elsa turned to the guard closest to her, "The party is over, close the gates."

The guard left after a quick, "Yes, your majesty," while Anna lunged at her sister uttering a series of no's.

Elsa's precariously balanced façade only cracked further when Anna managed to snag one of her gloves, and the queen immediately tried to retrieve it. Her heart was racing, her palms were sweaty, and she could feel the tell-tale tingle that came when her powers were boiling just underneath the surface. She tried to remember Jack's training, but for some reason it was just out of her reach. The necklace felt hot under her dress.

"Please, please, I can't live like this anymore," Anna begged.

Elsa would come to regret in due time what she said next. Looking into her sister's eyes, and feeling more than ever like a burden for keeping her sister a prisoner in a golden cage, Elsa uttered the hardest, and arguably the stupidest, words she ever said in her life.

"Then leave."

The hurt in Anna's eyes was unmistakable, but Elsa would stand by her decision. Anna could go to Prince's Hans kingdom, marry there and have a lot of children, and just be free of Elsa. Unable to bear that look in Anna's eyes anymore, the queen turned and left.

"What did I ever do to you?" Anna called after her, and people were starting to stare.

"Enough, Anna," Elsa ground out, feeling overwhelmed by the stares of the people. Her façade was breaking, and she was trying too hard to keep it together that she barely notice her necklace had become just a tad too hot to be bearable.

"Why do you shut me out? Why do you shut the world out? What are you so afraid of?"

A barrage of memories, not particularly good ones, assaulted Elsa. Her sister being comatose after Elsa accidentally hit her. Elsa almost freezing his father's hand off because she had a nightmare and forgot her gloves. Her mother's voice, distorted from her nightmare, telling her she would destroy the kingdom with her bare hands.

"I said enough!" Elsa yelled, to Anna and to her own memories, turning to her sister and making a wide hand gesture. The necklace had gone from too hot to too cold in a second, the air around them dropped at least by ten degrees and icy stalagmites rose from the ground and towards, not only Anna, but the rest of their guests. If it wasn't bad enough that her powers lashed out like that, the fact that they had threatened the safety of her sister and her guests was just the cherry on top.

People around her gasped and hastily backed away lest they be impaled by the ice. Elsa was cornered against the door. She tried to calm her racing heart, but the more she wanted it to calm down the harder she heard it in her ears. The Duke of Weselton's words really just made everything worse.

"Sorcery," his voice was low but, in the silence, it echoed like a scream, "I knew there was something dubious going on."

Elsa wondered if she would be allowed to explain or if they would just kill the newly crowned queen.

Anna's voice was the last straw, calling her name with such sadness and confusion, "Elsa."

Elsa ran. Her feet, unwisely, took her to the courtyard full of people. She could hear footsteps behind her, and she tried to make a quick escape, which was hindered as her subjects clapped for her and blocked her way. Part of her knew it wasn't on purpose, but it certainly felt like they were barricading her. She thought she caught a glimpse of white from the corner of her eye, but Jack hadn't shown himself for months and it would be stupid to hope he would come save her now.

Elsa felt sick.

A woman with a baby asked her if she was alright, but Elsa's eyes zeroed on the baby she could potentially hurt and she backed away, bumping into the fountain. The stone and the water instantly froze. The crowd awed and gasped. Then the Duke of Weselton arrived clamoring for her arrest.

"Please, just, stay away," Elsa begged, but for some unknown reason, a jet of ice blasted from her ungloved hand. If people hadn't feared her before, now they certainly would, as it unmistakably looked like she attacked the duke on purpose.

The Duke, from the floor, echoed what everyone must have been thinking.

"Monster," he pointed his bony finger at her, "monster!"

No longer had the words left his mouth, the people who had previously come near her now backed away. The woman who'd offered help now took her child against her bosom and hid herself behind a man who was, presumably, her husband. Elsa stared at her cursed hands, and ran towards the lake.

The magnificent Fjord which was the only thing that could calm her racing thoughts proved to be her enemy in this instance. It cornered her just like the walls of her castle, just like the palace guards, and the people, and her sister. It prevented her from going somewhere quiet to calm her thoughts and take stock.

Anna was calling her name, and she backed away into the water. To Elsa's surprise, she didn't feel the water lapping at her feet and wetting the hem of her skirt; she looked down and saw ice. Her powers had frozen the water of the lake enough to provide footing for her.

Elsa didn't question it; she took it as the escape she was looking for and didn't look back.

* * *

"Was that necessary?" Jack Frost asked as he and Mother Earth stared intently into what could only be described as a crystal ball. Said crystal ball was glowing dangerously red, and they could see everything the new queen of Arendelle saw through the subtle magic of the necklace he gave her.

"Don't ask me stupid questions," Mother Earth retorted, not looking away.

"She's terrified," Jack tried to argue, but he knew it was futile.

"Which will make it easier for her to realize her place is with us, and not with them," Mother Earth begrudgingly explained, "you should know better by now."

Jack Frost didn't say anything further.

When Mother Earth asked him to befriend the mortal princess three years ago, he had been confused; but orders were orders and he did as he was told. Then, all of the sudden, Mother Earth told him to give her the necklace and disappear, which he did perfectly. Elsa didn't suspect a thing, and Mother Earth kept her plans tucked in close to her chest, so Jack's confusion didn't ease.

Yet, he couldn't help but pity the girl as a thick blanket of snow and ice covered her kingdom while she raced to the mountains.

* * *

Going to the mountains wasn't her greatest idea, but at least Elsa was alone now. She felt strangely liberated. Now her secret was out, she didn't have to hide anymore. Then why was she? Well, she would much rather stay alive. So, she made herself a palace, with ice that glittered in the sun, enjoying the feeling of her power cursing through her fingertips when it wasn't tainted by her insecurities.

But as all the good things in her life, it didn't last long.

Anna was the first to find her. She had hitched a ride with an ice collector and somehow managed to get to the palace. Part of Elsa was relieved that Anna didn't seem to be angry at her, while another part felt warm at the praise Anna gave her newly built ice palace. Elsa told Anna she didn't intend to go back. She made her decision; Anna would a better queen anyways.

And then Anna had to tell her that she had frozen her kingdom.

The anxiety which Elsa had all but forgotten made a vicious comeback until she felt like she was suffocating. Again, the necklace felt uncomfortably hot; her powers kept building, like a pot of boiling water just about to overflow. And, when it finally overflew, Anna was right there to take the brunt of it.

Anna left leaning heavily on the man, whose name Elsa learned was Kristoff. She didn't look well, and Elsa worried. A couple of hours later, Hans of the Southern Isles arrived, presumably tracking Anna, but he came with an army.

Elsa had never fought with her powers. The most she sought to do with them was to keep them tucked away, or maybe build a palace, but she had never wanted to use them to fight. Prince Hans, of all people, reminded her of that. It distracted her long enough for one of the soldiers to dislodge the chandelier she made, which mind you she was proud of, and she barely escaped with her life and with no small amount of bruising.

Elsa woke up in the dungeons, alone and confused. She caught a glimpse out the window and noticed with increasing dismay that Anna hadn't been lying when she said Arendelle was frozen. She looked down at the shackles, noting that they seemed to have been made for her.

She chuckled bitterly. Of course, her parents would have a contingency plan for someone as dangerous as her; it looked, after all, like they were right. She maneuvered her way around them to get closer to the window.

"What have I done?" she exhaled in disbelief.

"The creak of the door startled her, and she found herself looking at Prince Hans of the Southern Isles.

"Why did you bring me here?" she demanded.

"I couldn't just let them kill you," the prince answered, crossing his arms. They were both on edge, defensive.

"But I'm a danger, to Arendelle," Elsa argued, "get Anna."

"Anna has not returned," Prince Hans replied carefully, and Elsa turned to look out the window again, this time worried about her sister, "if you just stop the winter. Bring back summer. Please."

Elsa felt helpless. Why didn't they understand she didn't know how? Jack would know how, but he hadn't been around in months and she stopped believing he would come back some time ago.

"Can't you see?" she voiced her question out loud, "I can't."

The prince's eyes widened, as if he was having a revelation.

"You have to tell them to let me go," Elsa continued.

"I will do what I can," the prince replied and left. Elsa wanted to cry. She looked down and saw that even the tailor-made shackles weren't a match for her powers as crystals formed on the surface of the metal.

Her time in the dungeons passed slowly and silently. She didn't even try to stop the ice from spreading from the chains to the floor to the walls, seeing as at least it was contained and no one was around. She was startled out of her depressing revere when she heard the guards whispering urgently and some yells echoing from the walls.

Her hackles went up as the feeling of danger intensified. She pulled at the chains, weakened from the ice, and managed to break them. Just before the dungeon's door opened and a very angry-looking Hans waltz in, she managed to blast a whole through the wall and took off running for the second time across the frozen Fjord.

A blizzard picked up, and Elsa wasn't sure if it came from her or not. What she knew, is that it was hindering her visibility and making any progress stall. She felt like she was walking in circles, a suspicion confirmed when she came face to face with Prince Hans again.

She tried to run the other way.

"Elsa! You can't run from this," he called behind her, and she stopped to look at him.

"Just take care of my sister," she told him, making herself seem as defenseless as she was feeling.

"Your sister? She returned from the mountain weak and cold," Prince Hans told her, and Elsa's stomach filled with dread, "she said that you froze her heart."

Elsa's heart beat painfully in her ears. It couldn't be happening. It wasn't supposed to happen. Elsa was supposed to keep her sister safe. "No," she cried, not wanting to hear anymore.

"I tried to save her, but it was too late," the prince continued, regardless, "her skin was ice, her hair turned white."

Elsa's eyes turned wide and frightened. She remembered the trolls telling her parents that it hadn't been hear heart at least, all those years ago when her powers only hit Anna's head. They hadn't explained what would happen, only that Anna was lucky. Elsa's insides turned cold in a way that had nothing to do with her powers; dread coiled in her stomach like a cobra ready to strike, and her hands trembled as she lost any form of pretense of staying calm.

"Your sister is dead," the prince continued, tactless either because of his own hurt feelings or because he failed to notice hers, "because of you."

"No," Elsa staggered, feeling the world tilt on its axis, and suddenly she was on the floor. Her mind played her memories of the last two days, trying to find the moment when Elsa had unknowingly signed her sister's death sentence. It came to her in a haze; they were arguing in her palace. Anna wanted her to come back and stop the winter, Elsa insisted she couldn't do it because she didn't know how. Her powers lashed out, but Elsa didn't see if they struck Anna. She did see Anna stagger, though, but she thought it was from the shockwave and not the blast itself. Elsa had killed her sister. She had proved to be what everyone thought she was: a monster.

Elsa sobbed. The world stopped, quite literally. The blizzard became suspended in mid-air, but Elsa didn't notice any of this. She kept replaying the argument with Anna in her head over and over again, wishing she had kept better control, wishing to turn back time to prevent it.

She heard the sheath of a sword, and then Anna's voice. Then she felt a massive shockwave, but it didn't come from her. She looked up, and found one frozen hand. She followed it up the arm, the shoulder, the face.

"Anna! Oh, Anna. No, no," Elsa gingerly touched Anna's cheeks. Hans lied to her; Anna hadn't died in the palace, instead, she had died right here protecting Elsa from him. The irony hurt her; Elsa was the one supposed to protect Anna, but in the end, it was Anna who saved her life despite what Elsa did to her. For the first time in her life, she could touch her sister and her powers would be unable to hurt her, because Anna had already turned to ice. She still couldn't help but beg, "please, no."

"Elsa," a voice called her, and she could hardly believe it. She turned to find Jack Frost accompanied by a woman who she had never seen before, "I've brought help."

"Now?" Elsa asked, realizing her voice was an octave too high but too far gone to care, "Where were you two days ago when I froze my kingdom? Where were you when I froze my sister's heart?"

"He was looking for me," the woman spoke. She was tall, taller than most woman Elsa had ever seen, and so pale she could have merged with the background. Her hair was glowing silver, and her eyes were pale blue, like the sky right before a snowfall. Elsa thought she looked like the personification of a snowflake. She looked stricken, "I'm sorry it took so long."

"Who are you?" Elsa asked, not caring about manners anymore.

"Mother Earth," the ethereal being answered, "it may be too late for your sister, but I can bring back the summer to your kingdom."

Elsa was taken aback. She looked around her, for a moment stepping out of her own personal grief, and she caught the glimpse of her people looking at her with trepidation and fear. Then, she looked back to Anna, frozen from the inside out in so irreversible a damage not even the trolls could heal her. She then looked at Mother Earth and gave a curt nod.

With a wave of her hand, the snow melted and the clouds faded. The Fjord thawed and the previously tilted ships righted themselves. Elsa found herself standing in front of the only two beings in the world who could understand her while her own kingdom would probably try her for treason and regicide. As if reading her thoughts, Mother Earth offered her a hand but no words of explanation.

Elsa, after one longing glance at Anna, took it and the three of them disappeared in a flourish of snowflakes.

By the time Anna thawed, as she performed an act of true love for her sister, Elsa and her two mystery companions were long gone.

* * *

**Author's Note: This is where the story takes a major deviation from its predecessor. Jack is introduced much earlier, and Mother Earth has been shown to be a little more than a manipulative hag. Aside from the differences writing wise- that again, only old readers will be able to point out -this version will go on an extremely different direction.**

**I would very much like to know your opinion, so please leave a review. And be kind. I am no opposed to criticism that is valid and will improve the story, but if it is surrounded by hateful words, I will most likely ignore it.**


	3. Chapter Two

**Author's Note: Trigger warnings - someone contemplates suicide and there is heavy, emotional talk. Could be potentially triggering.**

**I've got two guest reviews. You know who you are: The story follows the disney cannon at the beginning because it has to start somewhere. Last time I tried to deviate too much from it because it would get more readers, I ended up with a pretty messed up message, so I am here trying to correct that. I assure you, from here on out the story takes its own twist and deviates from both the Disney version and my previous version. Patience, please.**

**Disclaimer: Anything you recognize doesn't belong to me.**

* * *

Chapter Two

"Wait, I don't understand, who took my sister?" Anna asked, pacing in front of the fireplace despite Kristoff's, and most of the staff's, earnest recommendations that she should rest.

"I don't know," Kristoff huffed, "he had white hair and looked as pale as a ghost."

"The… queen," the servant had the decency to flinch when Anna glared at him for his hesitation, "called him Jack."

"It might be Jack Frost, the prince of the Winter Court," Anna's chambermaid supplied, while Anna rolled her eyes.

"Do you really expect me to believe that a couple of fairy tale characters appeared out of nowhere and spirited my sister away?"

The people in the room exchange an uncertain glance. Finally, Kristoff took it upon himself to explain… or die trying.

"Well, the woman claiming to be Mother Earth did thaw the Fjord," the ice master supplied, "you were frozen, and the queen was clearly distraught. They appeared out of thin air, and with a wave of her hand, Mother Earth made it summer again. Then she offered a hand to the queen, she took it and the three of them vanished."

Anna held Kristoff's gaze for a whole minute after he finished. Finally, she exhaled.

"I believe you," she declared, and everyone in the room slumped in relief, "until the queen returns, I will act as regent. I want Prince Hans of the Southern Isles shipped back to the Southern Isles with a letter detailing his crimes. He is hereby exiled from Arendelle and he should return on pain of death."

The occupants in the room were shocked into silence. They had never heard the princess sound so callous before. As they pondered on the princess's change, Anna continued without sparing them a glance.

"I also want all business ties with Weselton severed. He and his idiotic, ignorant remarks cost me my sister and he will no longer be welcome here. Now leave."

The servants obeyed and left with a quiet shuffling of feet. Kristoff stayed.

"I want to be alone, Kristoff," Anna said, still looking out the window if only to avoid looking at the man who had helped her so much in the last couple of days.

"No, you don't," he quickly replied,

"How do you know?" Anna spat, suddenly angry, "You don't know me. I only just met you. How could you possibly know what I want?"

"Because you're hurt," Kristoff retorted unfazed, "you went above and beyond to bring your sister back, and you very nearly died to save her life. And she just left."

"Stop," Anna ordered, turning on him with fire in her eyes, "just stop. You don't know what you're talking about."

Kristoff, undeterred, took a step forward and calmly hugged Anna to his chest. Anna resisted; her tiny fists hit his chest in half-hearted attempts to free herself, but soon, her shoulders were shaking with the force of her sobs, and the fists which previously were trying to hurt him, now clung to his shirt.

"I can't trust anyone anymore," Anna wailed against his chest, "I'm all alone."

Kristoff sighed.

"You can trust me."

* * *

Mother Earth took Elsa to a wide, open courtyard, and the first thing the former queen noticed was how cold it was. It wasn't the kind of chill Arendelle had in early spring, nor the cold wet sensation of Arendelle's winters. No, this cold was dry and it settled deep into her bones.

"Welcome to the Winter Palace, Elsa," Mother Earth told her, sympathy in her eyes.

"How do you know my name?" Elsa asked, not remembering introducing herself.

"Jack here has told me all about you," Mother Earth chuckled, "I'm sorry I had to keep him away for so long. If I had known, then…"

Then Elsa might still have a sister. Nobody said it, but they all thought it. Elsa looked away.

"Jack, why don't you show her to her new chambers?" Mother Earth prompted, shooting the man a pointed look that Elsa missed.

"Of course," Jack replied, following previously given orders, "come with me, your majesty."

"Don't call me that," Elsa snapped.

Jack raised his hands in a placating gesture. Elsa slumped, feeling very tired all of the sudden.

"I'm not a queen anymore. I'm just Elsa."

"Okay," Jack acquiesced, "follow me, Elsa."

Elsa did. They walked through a magnificent archway leading to what Elsa could only assume was a ballroom. She was admiring the intricate designs in the walls and the ceiling when they moved to another room, this one with a grand staircase in the middle. She couldn't help but feel very much inferior as she compared, in her mind, her ice palace with this one. The diminutive animal faces adorning the rails had whiskers, lashes and she could even make out fur. They didn't speak while they walked.

Soon, Jack stopped in font of a door that had her name engraved in it, done in utmost detail. Elsa felt a little weirded out by this. Jack noticed, and scrambled to explain.

"I asked Mother Earth months ago if you could come live here," he stammered, "of course, she said that if you agreed, chambers could be arranged. I have been working on this since then, which is why I didn't have time to visit, but it's done now and I was going to ask you next week, but then I felt your necklace acting up and…"

Elsa stopped him with a move of her hand. He was nervous, too nervous; he wasn't acting the way he had when they met. This seemed more… deliberate, as if he was trying to appear flustered.

"You're lying," she accused, feeling confused, "now tell me the truth."

Immediately, Jack's demeanor changed. His posture straightened, and the charming boyish smile he was wearing dissolved into a neutral expression that made him seem more like a statue than a person.

"This are your chambers, Elsa," Jack told her, with none of the usual inflections in his voice.

"How long have you been planning this?" she asked, apprehension blossoming in her chest as it dawned on her that this had been a ruse.

"Since before you were born," Mother Earth answered from behind her, startling her, "you were destined to live here, even though you were born to mortal parents."

"Why have you brought me here?" Elsa demanded.

"To become Jack's bride, of course," Mother Earth replied as if she was talking about the nice weather, "you have been arranged for marriage since you were both in diapers."

"My parents never mentioned it," Elsa countered, more than just weary.

"Well, from what I heard, they died when you were pretty young. I'm sure they would have told you in due time."

Elsa turned on Jack, "Did you know?"

"Mother Earth told me about you three years ago and encouraged me to befriend you," was his monotone reply.

"And you agreed?" Elsa asked aghast.

"I am bound to follow Mother Earth's orders regardless of what they might be," Jack answered, and added, "you would do well to do the same."

"Take me back to Arendelle," Elsa turned back to Mother Earth, trying to channel her inner queen.

"I'm afraid I can't do that," Mother Earth explained, "when you took my hand, you accepted that you fall under my jurisdiction. That means that you all but abdicated the throne. Not only that, but if you do go back, they will execute you for killing your sister, the princess of Arendelle."

"I never agreed to be part of whatever plan your plotting," Elsa argued.

"You did the moment you took my hand and allowed me to bring you here, for you agreed to be part of our world and not theirs."

"If I had known this would happen, I would have never taken your hand."

"Well, it's too late now for would haves. Fact is you belong to me, and as such, you will follow my orders. You'll realize soon that it's better for your overall health to do as you're told, like Jack here," Mother Earth pointed to the man, who hadn't moved from his initial position, staring blankly ahead like a soldier waiting for a command.

It creeped Elsa out.

Mother Earth left them in the hallway, and Elsa reckoned that she wasn't locked up because Mother Earth was that confident that she wouldn't find the exit. She turned to look at Jack, who still hadn't moved.

"Was it all an act then?" she spat at him.

"I did what Mother Earth ordered me to," Jack said.

"Well, you did a marvelous job being her lap dog," Elsa continued, "now leave me alone."

"I can't until you go into your chambers," Jack retorted, still in that grating monotone voice.

Elsa huffed, and most definitely did not stomp inside, and slammed the door in her face, hoping it would hit his nose and make him bleed. She looked at her surroundings. There was a bed with a soft mattress, a vanity, and a floor to ceiling window overlooking the desolated tundra. Everything was made in lilacs and soft pinks, making it look like a nursery more fitted for a little girl than a grown woman. She turned around, fully intending to find a way back to Arendelle, only to find she couldn't open the door. Of course, that's why Jack had to make sure she was inside her chambers.

She was, effectively, trapped.

* * *

It took Anna about an hour to calm down enough to eat something. Kristoff was worried about possible sequels of getting one's heart frozen, but Anna said she felt fine. Physically, at least. She was still trying to wrap her head around this mysterious young man who came in the nick of time to save their kingdom, even though they took her for dead. If what Kristoff told her was correct, then Elsa had been positively devastated, and if she didn't see her heart thaw, no wonder she would want to leave. Still, something about this whole situation bothered her.

She couldn't do anything about that, though.

What she could do was try to keep her people safe, and maybe prevent them from rioting against the royal family.

Anna needed to know also more about Elsa's powers; after all, she only found out three days ago. Had she always had them? Did they suddenly appear when she was a child? Was the reason behind Elsa distancing herself from Anna?

Going into Elsa's room, she found very little answers. The only thing she found were old toys, totally encased in ice, as if it refused to melt despite the years that had gone by. She would have to store that away for later.

Then, she went to her parents' chambers. She had never been there, not even as a child, as it was disrespectful to enter the king and queen's personal quarters. She knew for a fact that no one had come in years; not even servants, because Elsa forbade anyone from disturbing their rooms. So, it was a lot of trepidation that she tiptoed inside, as if her mother would suddenly appear around the corner and catch her in the act. She closed the door behind her.

The drapes were shut, and when she opened them, they raised a cloud of dust that had Anna coughing so loud she was surprised no one came knocking. Aside from the dust, the chambers were pristine. Anna examined the bottles of essence on top of her mother's vanity, recognizing the one she always wore because it was mostly empty. Her combs were to the side, right next to a couple of hair pins the queen probably forgot to put in their place.

Anna felt like she had travelled back in time.

Tears prickled at her eyes, but it was probably the dust, so Anna carried on. She found a writing desk next to the window, and saw a closed book sitting on top. Curious, she opened it and her eyes widened. It was a notebook of the finest quality, and if the name in the front cover was anything to go by, it belonged to her mother.

Anna couldn't help herself when she started to read.

It started when her mother was eighteen and she discovered her parents had arranged her marriage to a young prince of a small kingdom in the "middle of nowhere". Anna chuckled. She flipped through the pages, not wanting to know too many details of her parents' personal life. Anna read a passage about how the prince was shy, but seemed to be a good man. Then the wedding jitters her mother wrote about, her insecurities and her fears. Then Anna skipped everything that had to do with the wedding night and their honeymoon. She skipped a lot, but she felt she was intruding in her mother's innermost thoughts, those she didn't even share with her father, and it felt violating.

Anna finally got to what she was looking for.

After endless entries of the queen's feelings on her failure to conceive a child, the queen spoke of a deal struck with Mother Earth. The subsequent entries revealed that Elsa had had her powers since she was a year old, and that her parents were worried about how to raise her. Then Anna was born.

It came to Anna as a surprise to find out they never intended to hide away Elsa's powers from her. In fact, in the earlies years, Elsa used them to play with Anna. Anna then stopped reading, and tried to remember those instances. Every memory she had of playing with Anna in the snow took place outside, and for the life of her, she couldn't remember the dates. She continued reading. She discovered what happened to her when she was four, and she understood why she couldn't remember. Her mother wrote about keeping the children separate for their own good, about Elsa's increasing powers and Anna's increasing loneliness.

She didn't need to finish reading the journal for her to understand the problem, and part of her couldn't help but resent her parents. If they had just told Anna, Elsa wouldn't have been so afraid, and maybe she wouldn't have lashed out the way she did at the coronation. Anna realized that when her parents died, Elsa lost the only people who knew about her powers. It made her incredibly sad; while Anna was lonely, she had the servants. From her mother's accounts, Elsa didn't have servants and did everything on her own.

Anna had to fix this. She had to find Elsa, reassure her that it wasn't her fault, convince her to come back. Anna wasn't going to lose the last member of her family, especially not to something like this.

* * *

After the anger ebbed away, Elsa was hit by an immense amount of grief and despair. Nobody would be looking for her because the only person left in the world who might have cared for her was dead, and Elsa was her killer. She sat by the window feeling as barren as the landscape before her. She wasn't even sure why she'd defied Mother Earth so vehemently when she really had nothing else to fight for.

She didn't cry. She didn't want to cry. She killed her sister, so she had no right to mourn her. After all, if Elsa had been better at keeping her powers in check, Anna would still be alive. So no, she didn't allow the tears behind her eyes to fall because she had no right to be sad. The people of Arendelle did, for they had lost their princess; but not Elsa, she lost that right when she froze her sister's heart, however unintentionally.

Her heart throbbed. Every beat of it reminded Elsa of the one she froze and she wished to take Anna's place. Her chest ached. Her head felt clouded, and her energy slowly drained away until she dozed off where she was at the window.

When she woke up, she was leaning against the cold glass and her neck had a kink in it. It hurt to move, and she just wanted to go right back to sleep. Her stomach growled, but she had no intention of asking for food. Mother Earth thought she could control her, but Elsa would have rather starved to death. If that happened to upset Mother Earth, well… that was a plus.

Her peace, however, was disturbed by a knock on the door. Elsa ignored it. The person outside knocked again. Elsa still ignored it. Finally, the person knocked a third time and opened the door. Elsa didn't turn to see who the newcomer was.

"I brought you food," Elsa heard the voice of Jack, sounding more like the man she'd met out her window three years ago.

"I don't want it," Elsa said, resting her head against the window pane.

"It's going to make you feel better."

Elsa sighed, losing the little patience she had left. "Let me guess: you can't leave until I've eaten whatever it is your brought;" Jack's silence told her everything she needed to know, so she continued, "then you better make yourself comfortable, because I don't want to eat."

As if to contradict her, her stomach growled. She was going to ignore it, but then she heard Jack's laughter. She turned to glare at him, only to find him smiling that crooked grin of his, the one where it seemed he knew what made her tick and purposely pushed her buttons, and her heart ached because it reminded her of his betrayal. She turned back to the window, resolute to ignore him. His laughter ceased.

"I'm sorry," Jack finally said.

"What are you sorry for? You were only following orders, after all," Elsa parroted his words back at him, letting him know exactly how she felt about the matter.

"You don't understand; if it wasn't for Mother Earth, I wouldn't be alive," Jack stressed, "I am bound to serve her."

Elsa just hummed, "Keep telling yourself that if it will make you feel better."

"You owe her too now, you know," Jack added, and Elsa really just wanted to kick him out of her room, "the people there would have killed you after what you did. You are safer here, with her. With us."

"Maybe death is what I deserve for killing my sister," Elsa whispered, clearly not wanting Jack to hear, but in the silence of the tundra the sound just carried back to him anyway.

"My father is Old Man Winter," Jack blurted out, "you might have heard of him as Father Winter too. Here, he is the Winter King," Elsa sighed. It seemed she wouldn't get the man to leave her alone. Even so, she wouldn't dignify him with a response, "I used to be human, you know? Like you? Half human, half not. When I was eleven, strange things started happening around me. That winter was very cold, and a lot of people died, including my mother. The man who raised me as his son blamed me for it, and he got enough people in the village to believe him and they all tried to kill me. Mother Earth found me and brought me here."

"Is there a point to this?" Elsa asked, wondering if she could freeze Jack's mouth just so that he would shut up.

"I might have killed my mother and my baby sister," Jack's voice hardened, "but you don't see me wallowing."

"You told me you were a little over a hundred years old, Jack," Elsa droned from her seat, "even if you were responsible for their deaths, you have had a century to come to terms with it. You also said you weren't sure if it was you. For all you know, it could have been just a coincidence that the winter was harsh that year. I, on the other hand, know the exact moment my powers lashed out against my sister, and because of that she turned into an ice sculpture."

Jack didn't reply. Instead, as Elsa found out, he decided to sit in front of her in whatever space was left in the window sill. They didn't speak anymore; Elsa went back to ignoring him, while he amused herself making snowflakes in his palm and sending them up to the ceiling. At some point, she must have dozed off, because the next time she opened her eyes, she was lying on the four-poster bed with pastel pink covers with a comforter over her.

She jumped out of the bed so fast that the blood rushed out of her head and she had to grab the poster just to prevent herself from kissing the floor. She heard a chuckle and, when her vision finally cleared, she found Jack laughing at her predicament.

"Why did you tuck me in?" she asked, accusingly.

"You seemed uncomfortable," Jack shrugged his shoulders.

"That doesn't mean you had any right to tuck me in," Elsa yelled, walking towards him, only to be attacked by another dizzy spell. This time, she didn't find anything to hold on to, and she fell to the floor. She heard more than saw Jack's hurried footsteps towards her.

"Stop," she cried, "get away from me."

"Why are you doing this to yourself?" Jack demanded in return, kneeling in front of her. She jumped out of his reach, causing the world to tilt again.

"Because I deserve it!" Elsa finally confessed, "I deserve to go hungry; I deserve to be uncomfortable. I killed my sister!

"She only ever wanted us to be friends, to get to know me, and I only ever pushed her away, and as soon as she got close, I froze her heart and now she's dead!"

She didn't realize she was crying until the big fat droplet fell on her hands. She quickly wiped them away.

"You are allowed to grieve," Jack said, looking like he wanted to help her but wisely keeping his hands to himself.

"No, I'm not," Elsa retorted, "I don't have the right to cry for the person I killed, because if it wasn't for me, she would still be alive."

"You don't believe that."

"I do. If I could take her place, I would do it in a heartbeat. She should be alive, not me," she looked down at her hands as if she wanted to cut them off, "these cursed powers have only brought death and destruction to my family."

Jack didn't reply; what could he say? He would also be lying if he said that he didn't feel the same way about his own tragedies. His mother had been young, with her whole life ahead of her, and his sister all but idolized him. They didn't deserve the fate they got, and if he hadn't been born, they would have probably lived.

"This is why Mother Earth brought you here," Jack finally said.

Elsa couldn't help the bitter sound that left her mouth posing as a laugh, "I thought she brought me here so that I could marry you."

Jack shrugged; he had decided to stop questioning Mother Earth's decisions a long time ago.

"I don't meddle with her affairs," he simply said, "whatever plans she has, she needs us, and after what she did for me, I'm not going to refuse her. But anyway, she brought you here to keep you, as much as your kingdom, safe."

"I don't want to be safe," Elsa all but pleaded, "I want to die. I don't deserve to be safe when my sister is dead. You should have left me there to be executed."

"It's okay to feel sad," Jack continued, as if he hadn't heard her, "in fact, it's much better to grieve than to bottle up your feelings. But it's not okay to let those feelings drag you down."

"Aren't you listening?" Elsa asked, trying to stand up but finding herself too weak to do it, "I'm not interested. I don't want to have a long happy life, much less a life as long as yours serving the all mighty Mother Earth. So take the tray of food you brought with you, shove it in Mother Earth's face, and leave me the hell alone."

Jack stared at her with wide, doe-like eyes, before seemingly conceding defeat and leaving her room. This was perhaps the first time in a century in which Jack had been unable to fulfill Mother Earth's orders, and he felt the shame of that building up right behind his ribcage and down in his stomach. He went to the throne room, where there was a huge glove that represented the planet in the middle, and touched it with his right hand. He sent a pulse of energy and second later Mother Earth was materializing in front of him.

"What do you have to report?" she asked, as always, concise and to the point.

"She still refuses to eat. It seems she has it in her head to join her sister and her parents sooner rather than later," the man sighed.

"Her sister is alive," Mother Earth supplied, "something happened when she jumped in front of the sword to save Elsa, yet I do not know what."

Jack could tell Mother Earth was extremely irritated at that simple fact.

"That's good, then," Jack asked, "if her sister is alive then Elsa might be more willing to cooperate?"

"Or, instead, demand we take her to Arendelle and refuse to cooperate altogether," Mother Earth countered, "no, she must not know. And you must not tell her."

Jack frowned, "Isn't that a little cruel? Letting her believe she killed her own sister?"

"Everything is fair in love and war, Jack," Mother Earth said with an eye roll, "and this is war."

"For how much longer?"

"As long as it takes to get Old Man Winter off the throne."

Jack sighed, knowing he was fighting a losing battle. He would do whatever Mother Earth told him to regardless of his feelings on the matter.

"That doesn't solve the issue that Elsa refuses to eat," Jack brought their attention back to the problem at hand.

"Then do whatever it takes to snap her out of it," Mother Earth demanded, "it's bad enough she's human, now she's also going to be weakened by hunger? No, you must get her to eat and sleep. Then, you will train her the same way I trained you."

"Can I call on someone to help me?" Jack asked, hopeful.

Mother Earth huffed exasperated, "If you think she can help, go ahead, but don't let them get too close. Toothiana is too sentimental and it would only be detrimental to our cause."

Jack bit back a grin Mother Earth would slap right out of his face and nodded, "Of course."

Mother Earth rolled her eyes one last time and disappeared in a flurry of dirt, and now Jack rolled her eyes annoyed. He knew how much she hated when she used dirt in the _ice_ palace. Even if it was frozen, water was water and it made mud impossible to clean from the pristine surface. He put two fingers in his mouth and whistled loudly. Two ice statues came marching in, ready to follow whatever the prince commanded.

Jack pointed to the one on the right, "Bring me my staff and my cloak." The ice statue left with its orders immediately.

Then, he pointed to the one on the left, "You clean this up. I don't want a trace of mud on the ice, okay? Also, send someone to stand guard outside of Elsa's room while I'm gone." The second one also left with its orders immediately.

A minute later the first returned with his travelling cloak and staff. Jack went to the French windows, which he had never understood why they were called _French_, and let the wind carry him to his destination: the Tooth Palace.

* * *

Queen Toothiana hadn't heard from Jack Frost in about seventy years. As a child, she had been appointed to be his kind of nanny. However, when she taught him how to think for himself and question orders, Mother Earth threatened to level her palace and her fairies with it if she didn't stop. Toothiana left and never returned.

So now, Toothiana was more than a little surprised to find Jack Frost perched atop one of the highest towers when she returned from the field. She couldn't help but smile; she adored the kid. And even though he complained that he was an adult, for her he would always be a kid.

"Well, if it isn't Jack Frost," she said when she was within hearing range.

His face broke into a huge smile, "Tooth, good to see you."

"Is Mother Earth around or did you sneak out to visit me because you felt like it?"

Jack grinned, "Believe it or not, this time I am here with her permission."

That took Toothiana by total surprise, "You are, huh? To what do I owe the pleasure?"

At that, Jack lost his smile.

"I need your help," he said, and gave her a brief account of Elsa, a human queen who lost her throne and her only relative in the last couple of days and didn't seem to want to live anymore. Toothiana felt immediate compassion for Elsa; once upon a time, she had been a queen herself. She kind of still was, but different. Anyway, she had been captured along with her people by poachers; whoever rebelled was killed. If it hadn't been for North, she would have been sold to the highest bidder and probably killed for her colorful feathers.

"Alright, I'll come with you," she started, "but, and this is a very big but, you have to tell me why Mother Earth is so interested in this human girl. The last human she fixated on was you, and you know exactly what I think about that."

Jack sighed and rubbed his face, "She saved my life Tooth, it's not like I could refuse her."

"Yes, you could. She turned you into her personal slave by using your sense of duty against you," Toothiana ranted and Jack rolled his eyes. Jack had heard this a million times before already.

"Anyway," he interrupted before the fairy could get carried away, "I don't know exactly what Mother Earth is planning. What I do know, is that she wants Elsa and I to get married."

Toothiana raised an eyebrow, "And you're okay with this?"

Jack shrugged, "There are worst people to be married to."

Toothiana rolled her eyes; Jack was a lost case. He couldn't seem to see Mother Earth's manipulations for what they were, and trying to convince him was like trying to convince the rain to fall upwards.

"What about her?" she asked instead.

"I don't think she's processed that yet," Jack confessed, having the sense to look sheepish, "she's far too busy trying to starve herself to death. She probably thinks she'll succeed; in which case she doesn't need to think about marrying anybody."

Toothiana's heart gave a painful lurch at the former queen's predicament. She knew she would help if only to get the girl to see the beauty in life again.

"Alright. I will not, under any circumstance, try to convince her that marrying you and being Mother Earth's lackey is a good idea, but I will not be able to live with myself if I don't try to help her."

Jack smiled at her and both of them took off flying after Toothiana left instructions for her fairies, promising to check in once a week. Everyone knew that dealing with these children was a full-time job.

* * *

Elsa, once again, had found her place at the windowsill. She didn't remember the last time she had eaten, probably on the coronation feast, let alone the last time she drank water, probably then as well, and that felt like a lifetime ago. Starving to death took a long time, but dehydration only took three days. She could barely conjure any ice at this point, which was fine by her. She was tired.

There was a knock on the door, but she ignored it. Even if she wanted to stand up, she probably wouldn't have had the energy. As she suspected, whoever knocked opened the door. She expected Jack with yet another tray of food, but instead, a female voice spoke up.

"Oh, sweetie," the woman cooed, and Elsa turned to look at the strangest thing she had seen yet. A woman, or maybe a bird, or maybe both was hovering midair and staring at her with… pity? No, understanding. Elsa thought she might be hallucinating.

Her suspicions were proven incorrect when she found herself pressed against silky soft feathers and woman rambled on about who knows what.

"How long ago did you drink anything?" the… woman asked her, and Elsa found herself staring at beautiful amethyst eyes.

"Huh?" she asked intelligently.

"How long ago did you drink anything?" the woman repeated.

Elsa frowned; she had a pounding headache, one that was made worse as she tried to recall how many days had passed since the coronation banquet.

"A couple of days," Elsa answered, but it sounded more like a question.

The woman tooted, flying away and returning with a cup of water. Elsa refused it.

"Jack told me all about your attempts at wasting away," the woman told her as she all but forced the cup into Elsa's hands, "and I won't let that happen."

"Who are you, exactly?" Elsa asked.

"Oh, where are my manners?" the woman expressed rhetorically, "My name is Toothiana, but you might know me better as the Tooth Fairy."

"The Tooth Fairy is a myth," Elsa retorted.

"Well, I'm supposed to be a myth too, but here I am," Jack's voice pipped in and Elsa realized with a start she hadn't even heard him enter.

"I don't want to drink," Elsa did not whine.

"I know it feels like there's nothing worth living anymore," Toothiana said softly, looking into Elsa's eyes, "I have lived over five centuries, and I can tell you, it gets better. I promise. But you have to give it a try, sweetie. Can you do that for me?"

Elsa's eyes filled with tears, "I don't want to. I don't deserve it. Please, don't make me."

"I can't make you do anything, sweetie," Toothiana retorted, "that's why the cup is in your hands and not on mine. I am just asking you to consider the possibility that one day, in the far future, you might look back on this day and thank yourself for taking the chance."

Elsa eyed the cup wearily. The Tooth Fairy wasn't trying to make her drink it; instead, she was giving her the choice. Of course, Elsa didn't think the Tooth Fairy would let her die if she decided not to drink. On the other hand, she remembered thinking she wanted to stay alive when she made her ice palace. That's why she fled Arendelle in the first place. And yet… she couldn't live knowing she had killed the one person she wanted to protect the most.

"I killed my sister," Elsa confessed, looking at the fairy in the eye and begging her to understand, "I can't live knowing that she died because of me."

Toothiana pursed her lips and Elsa was sure the dairy was going to start accusing her and scolding her. Much to her surprise, Toothiana hugged her again.

"Did you want to kill her?" the fairy asked.

Elsa was so taken aback she pushed the fairy away from her. Toothiana asked again, relentless.

"Did you want to kill her?"

"Do you think I would be like this if I had wanted to kill her?" Elsa snapped, suddenly angry.

"Doesn't that tell you enough, then?" Toothiana asked, and like an arrow, it pierced through Elsa's anger, deflating her like a balloon.

"I don't understand."

"Your guilt, Elsa," Toothiana clarified, "don't you think your guilt tells you that you aren't a monster?"

"But I am!" Elsa retorted, "Only monsters kill their families. My kingdom thought I was a monster, one of the foreign dukes even called me that."

"It doesn't matter what they think, Elsa," Toothiana countered, "what matters is what you think. What you feel. And right now, you feel so guilty that you think the only way to atone for your actions is to die. Am I right?"

Elsa didn't want to admit it out loud. She didn't want to admit that Toothiana had read her like an open book, and being confronted with her feelings in such an open way was not something she had expected.

The fairy continued, "I know I'm right. I also lost my kingdom. They were killed and I couldn't save them. I also thought it would be better if I had died with them. But then, someone told me that the best way to honor their lives, and subsequent deaths, is by preventing such a bad thing from happening to other people."

"This is different," Elsa argued.

"How is it different?" Toothiana asked.

Elsa had no words. It really wasn't that different, but she was still trying to think of reasons not to change her mind.

"My powers killed her," Elsa finally said, "it wasn't that I stood by and let it happen. It wasn't that it could have been in a roundabout way. My powers lashed out and killed my sister."

"Did you ask for your powers?" Toothiana asked then.

"Of course not," Elsa replied indignantly.

"Then it isn't your fault," Toothiana enunciated clearly, and the words felt like a punch to the gut for Elsa, "you did not ask for your powers, and because you didn't receive proper training, you really couldn't have been expected to control them properly. You tried your best to keep your sister safe, did you not?"

Elsa nodded softly, her eyes filling with tears again.

"Then that is what you must hold on to. You did what you could; her death was a tragic accident, and maybe it could have been prevented, but you shouldn't carry that responsibility only on your shoulders."

Elsa didn't say anything else. Her thoughts were reeling, her pulse raised and she could hear the beating of her heart in her ears. Her knees gave out but she barely noticed the feathered arms that caught her. Her breaths came in short, aborted gasps. The fairy took Elsa's hand and placed it against her chest, where Elsa could feel a steady, slower heartbeat, and matched her breathing to it. As the tightness in her chest receded, and she could breathe better, she released her emotions in a heartbreaking wail that brought tears to Tooth's eyes and even Jack had to excuse himself from the room.

Elsa cried for hours. She had thought she didn't have any more water in her body, but she had thought wrong, as more and more kept pouring out her eyes.

Eventually, her sobs died down, although tears still trickled down her cheeks. Toothiana gave presented her with another cup of water.

Elsa eyed it with trepidation.

This was the moment of truth.

Could she learn to live with what she had done?

Was Toothiana right, saying that it gets better? Did she want to figure it out?

Slowly, with a shaky breath and shaky hands, Elsa brought the cup to her lips and drank a tiny sip of cool refreshing water.

* * *

**Author's note: Go drink a cup of water, some chocolate ice cream and get a hug from someone you love. The last conversation between the characters was heavy and if any of you want to talk about it, feel free to leave a review with a name that isn't Guest on it. **

**Take care of yourselves, your emotional health is as important as your physical health.**


	4. Chapter Three

**Disclaimer: I don't own anything you might recognize.**

**Trigger warnings: Misplaced anger, coping with grief, mention of past abuse and/or abusive behavior, emotional manipulation, nightmares of death.**

* * *

Chapter Three

Elsa wasn't okay. Not by a long shot. Yet, she was trying, and Tooth couldn't ask any more from her. It was clear she was struggling with guilt, and with the lack of a purpose, but she had taken a bath that Tooth very carefully helped her with and afterwards she ate some chicken soup with a bit of rice.

However, Toothiana's suspicions that Mother Earth's schemes went deeper than they seemed were confirmed when she opened the closet and found a vast assortment of gowns of different colors and fabrics. Tooth had to admit that Mother Earth was formidable when taking care of the planet, just like the Man in Moon was the perfect leader for the Guardians. There just wasn't anyone else to do the job the way they could. Yet, she was far too scheming and paranoid for her taste.

She didn't say any of this though. She just helped Elsa into a night gown and tucked her in bed albeit with great reluctance. Afterwards, she closed the drapes and turned off the candles before leaving the former queen to her slumber. She was entirely unsurprised to find Jack waiting for her outside.

"How is she?" he inquired, his red rimmed eyes betraying his supposedly cool demeanor.

"She's not okay, but I believe she can be," Toothiana answered honestly. They started walking towards Tooth's chambers, which hadn't been used in seventy years but both knew exactly where they were. And if Jack hadn't sent one of his ice statues to clean it for her, she wasn't the Tooth Fairy. Tooth continued, "how long have you two known each other?"

"Three years," Jack replied mindlessly, deep in thought.

"Did you know Mother Earth wanted to bring her into," she gestured around her, "whatever this is?"

"I knew that Mother Earth was very interested in her."

"And you knew that before or after her parents died?"

Jack knew he'd been caught, "I lent my magic for the potion that helped her parents conceive her."

"Ah," Tooth continued with a dangerous glint in her eyes, "and how do you think she's going to feel when she discovers this little secret of yours?"

"She won't," Jack assured, "as far as she knows, I met her three years ago even if I was following Mother Earth's orders."

Tooth sighed, and they stopped right outside the door to her chambers.

"How do you feel about her, Jack?"

Jack stared at Tooth as if she had grown a second head.

"What do you mean?" he asked, tilting his head like a puppy.

"What I asked, Jack. How do you feel about her? You seemed pretty concerned for her well being out there."

"I am just doing my duty, that's all."

"So, you're not even the tiniest bit fond of her?"

"No, I'm not. People I'm fond of tend to die, so I am definitely not fond of her," Jack vehemently shook his head.

"You know, you have the same kind of faulty thought process as her," Tooth observed, "being guilt-ridden and all, about things you couldn't control."

"I don't know what you're talking about," Jack's eyes hardened, "I am not fond of her, and that's final. I am only following orders."

"Good night Jack," Tooth said with a sigh, "just a word of warning. You can't build a relationship on lies."

She then disappeared into her room, leaving Jack in a position he didn't want to be in. As long as he followed orders, he and the people around him would be safe. As he said, marrying Elsa wouldn't be the worst thing to happen to him, but it would only be on Mother Earth's orders and not because he felt something for her. Feelings were dangerous things, as he would have to teach Elsa as soon as she was recovered enough to start training. Discipline and obedience won wars and kept people safe.

He went to his room. It was late, and he was tired, yet sleep wouldn't come to him. So, he did what he usually did on sleepless nights: he went for a flight. Putting on the simplest tunic he could find with the most nondescript trousers, he finished the look with his cloak and hood. He grabbed his staff and jumped out the window, letting the wind current catch him.

He flew for hours without a destination in mind, but eventually, his flight took him back to where it all began.

He eyed the forged iron fence with trepidation.

This was a place of forgiveness… of redemption. Both of which he would never find in his life or death. He was, after all, the unholy offspring of the embodiment of winter. He shuddered, but he walked in anyway, weaving his way through multiple tombstones until he got to the odd one out.

It was a simple wooden cross embedded on the ground, with his mother's name etched onto it. Underneath her mother's name was his sister's name, as they had been buried together. A plot of land was expensive, and being farmers in a harsh winter meant they didn't have a lot of money. Next to it there was another one. A black slab of stone where his step-father's name was engraved. He clearly improved his station after Jack's departure, the prince thought bitterly.

But he couldn't find it in himself to blame them. They were humans; feeble creatures subject to emotional, irrational outbursts. No, they just didn't know any better. And his mother had loved him.

Instead, Jack stood up and glared at the moon.

"You could have stopped it," Jack accused the white celestial body miles away from Earth, knowing that the little man living there could hear him very well, "you could have helped me. Isn't that what your guardians are supposed to do? Protect childhood?"

"If I didn't know any better, I'd thought you were crazy," a voice to the right startled Jack, but he had learnt very early on not to jump when he was startled. He turned to see none other than E. Aster Bunnymund, "yet again, I've always known you're crazy."

"What do you want, kangaroo?" Jack goaded, getting the very rewarding reaction he was expecting. The bunny's fur bristled and he straightened against the tree.

"Not a kangaroo, mate," the bunny said through gritted teeth, "still, that's not why I'm here." Jack only raised his brow and the overgrown rabbit continued, "not too long ago there was a massive blizzard not too far from here. The entire village was covered in snow."

"You are aware that in one half of the world is winter, right?" Jack grinned, causing Bunnymund to growl.

"Yes, but this happened in a quaint little piece of land called Arendelle," the bunny continued and Jack stiffened, "where they are as of right now in the middle of summer. You wouldn't happen to know anything about that, would you?"

The glint in the rabbit's eye told him that Bunnymund didn't believe for a minute that Jack's wasn't involved. Lying wouldn't get him out of this one, but he couldn't divulge any information on Elsa just yet. It was Mother Earth's best kept secret, and she wanted to keep it that way.

"If I told you I was there on Mother Earth's orders, would you believe me?" Jack, instead, ask.

"You know bloody well I don't care what that old hag gets up to," Bunnymund replied, taking a threatening step forward. Jack's grip tightened on his staff, "I came here to warn you. Anymore of that funny business and Mother Earth will have to scrape your remains off the floor."

"You don't want to threaten me, Bunnymund, or you might find your burrow buried under a healthy dose of snow," Jack retaliated.

"Try me," Bunnymund scoffed, "you wouldn't last a minute against me, or my sentries."

"You wouldn't last a second against me," Jack countered, "or have you forgotten what happened in Arendelle? Even you weren't able to undo it, so I suggest you back off."

"So it was you, then," Bunny stepped up in Jack's personal space. He sniffed, creeping the prince out, but Jack had been taught never to show his discomfort to a potential enemy, "funny, because it didn't smell like your magic."

Crap. "It was… an experiment gone wrong," Jack _saved_ it.

Bunnymund hummed. Or _did_ he? "You are hiding something. Whatever happened there, rumor has it even Mother Earth showed up, and both you and I know she isn't one to give free performances."

"I stopped questioning her decisions a long time ago," Jack retorted, relieved to be back on safer ground.

"Yeah, I know, you just follow her orders like a mindless puppet," Bunnymund agreed, but something in his tone made Jack bristle, "I suppose she sent you here on another errand, then."

It was phrased as a question, but it didn't sound like it.

"Maybe," Jack was smart enough to keep his cards to himself.

Bunny cocked an eyebrow, "Whatever it is, go and tell Mother Earth to keep winter where it belongs, when it belongs, or I don't hold myself responsible for what happens to her minion."

Tapping three times on the ground, he sank down his tunnel and disappeared, leaving a daisy in its place. Jack sighed wearily and combed a hand through his hair. He turned to glare at the moon once more, which was glowing just a tad more brightly, and it irked Jack to no end.

"Fine group of guardians you have there," Jack told him, not bothering to hide the bitterness in his voice, "when I was a human child none of you helped me, but now your kangaroo dares to threaten me? You are nothing but a hypocrite, Man in the Moon, and one day I will see you fall."

The Winter Prince turned and caught a current of wind with his staff and returned to the Winter Palace, not one looking back at the cemetery, and trying to ignore the moon's everlasting presence in the night sky with no small amount of resentment.

He didn't need to sleep anyway.

* * *

Elsa woke up slightly disoriented. She remembered vaguely being tucked in the night before by the Tooth Fairy of all people, but she was still very tempted to just dismiss the whole experience as a very realistic dream. Yet, the emptiness in her chest told her a different story. She was still overwhelmed with grief, and she had no idea how to keep living, but the guilt that had been drowning her before had dissipated somewhat.

It was still there, lurking in the shadows, waiting for her to slip up.

Now, however, she felt a little lighter.

She rubbed the sleep out of her eyes and found a small basin with water next to her bed with a soft towel. Now that she had a clearer head, she wondered how the palace she was in worked. Her own palace, despite the grand architecture, was bare. The bed frame was there, but it didn't have a mattress nor pillows nor quilts. The place she had designated as a dinning room still needed a table. Her kitchens were as pretty as any in a doll house, but she didn't know if they were actually functional, what with all the ice.

In this place, however, she had gotten a cup of fresh water –which granted wasn't so hard to find in a palace made of ice in the tundra –and a lukewarm bowl of chicken soup, although that was because she had refused to eat at first. Her mattress seemed to be stuffed with feathers, the king she had in her chambers at Arendelle, and the quilt was of the highest quality. She didn't even fell the cold anything made of ice usually brought.

Someone knocked on the door, and Elsa snapped out of it.

"Come in," she whispered, her voice hoarse from all the crying from last night, but the door still opened and the Tooth Fairy flew in with a tray of food.

"Good morning, sunshine," she greeted, "how are you feeling today."

Elsa thought the fairy seemed way too lively for the unholy hour it was. There was also the fact that Elsa was still mourning. The former queen didn't reply, merely shrugging. Toothiana's eyes softened.

"I brought breakfast for two," the Tooth Fairy continued with that bright smile of hers, setting the tray down on the bed next to Elsa. The fairy then proceeded to fold his legs under her and take a seat on the bed. Then, Toothiana grabbed a handful of grapes and started eating without another word.

Not quite knowing what to do, Elsa also took a handful of grapes and munched on them. The tray had two hot plates of porridge, some bread and cheese, and fresh fruit. Where do you even found fresh fruit in the tundra? There was also a steaming kettle which, somehow, didn't melt the ice tray.

"Mother Earth sends grain and fruit every month," Toothiana off handedly commented, puzzling Elsa.

"How?"

"Oh, your face is very expressive. Jack was the same when he got here, and I showed him the kitchen when he didn't believe me," Toothiana continued.

"I haven't seen a lot of people around," Elsa mentioned.

Toothiana nodded, swallowed the food in her mouth and explained, "there really aren't people around. There used to be, a long time ago."

"What happened?" Elsa asked, genuinely curious.

Tooth served them some tea as she tried to find the easiest way to answer that loaded question. She was glad Elsa was asking questions, for it showed she was improving, but that didn't make answering any easier. She took a sip of the warm liquid.

"This used to be where the Winter Court gathered. Since the dawn of time, Mother Earth and Old Man Winter, Jack's… father," the way she said made it clear for Elsa what Toothiana thought of the man, "have been fighting for dominance of the Earth. So far, Old Man Winter has only managed to get the upper hand twice, while Mother Earth has been the victor since."

Tooth mulled over what to say next in a silence that Elsa didn't dare to interrupt, lest Tooth lose her train of thought.

"When Mother Earth found Jack, and discovered that he had a legitimate claim to the throne, Mother Earth thought she could get rid of Old Man Winter for good," Toothiana had to take a steadying breath, "she brought the boy here, confronted Old Man Winter openly, and chased him out of his own palace, which she then gave to Jack. The Winter Court became fractured, with some supporting Old Man Winter and some supporting Mother Earth, and in extension, Jack."

"So, she just usurped the throne," Elsa commented with clear disapproval.

"You have to understand that Mother Earth's conflict with Old Man Winter is eternal. It's the natural fight for dominance between the elements. Human dynamics don't work in this context," Toothiana clarified.

"Yet you don't seem happy about it," Elsa pushed.

"Their conflict could go on for eons without anyone noticing, but when they started bringing innocent people into it, at a very high personal cost, and made the rest of us have to choose a side…" Toothiana trailed off, but Elsa could tell where the fairy's thoughts were going.

"Are you talking about innocent people in general or just about Jack?"

"I met Jack when he was eleven-year-old," Tooth recounted wistfully, "I raised him, and I loved him as if he was my own child. Of course I hate to see… I really shouldn't be talking about this. Mother Earth would be very displeased."

Elsa huffed in annoyance, "Why is everyone here trying to bend over backwards to please that woman? It's as if none of you knew how to think for yourselves."

"Oh, I have plenty of thoughts about her, but she made it very clear what will happen to me, and my fairies, if I don't keep them to myself," Toothiana replied with a hardened glint in her eyes. Elsa realized she'd stepped out of line.

"I'm sorry, I shouldn't have…"

"Yes, you shouldn't have," Toothiana interrupted, "a lot of us didn't have much of a choice when it came to choosing a side. Both Mother Earth and Old Man Winter can be ruthless in their pursuit of power, and they will not accept any neutral parties."

Elsa sighed deeply, and they fell into a... tolerable silence. Elsa tasted the porridge and had some tea, but she didn't have appetite for much else. When they had mostly finished their breakfast, Elsa thought about the one question that had started to bother her.

"Mother Earth said that I am now part of her jurisdiction," Elsa started, catching Toothiana's attention, "what did she mean by that?"

"Oh dear," Toothiana muttered, and that immediately made alarm bells ring in Elsa's mind, "your parents were human, weren't they?"

Elsa nodded.

"Basically, Mother Earth has power over everything that has to do with nature. Humans, despite having come from nature, have long since distanced themselves from it. As such, Mother Earth has no power over them; in fact, she, and all of us, are forbidden from even interacting with them, henceforth the reason you only know us from fairytales.

"Your powers come from nature, so technically, Mother Earth has power over your powers, but you are still human. She could only interact with you and bring you here once you decided you didn't belong with the humans anymore, but she couldn't force you to make that choice."

"So she just waited until I was in the most vulnerable place to offer me that choice?" Elsa spat, standing up to pace, "She couldn't just, I don't know, come to talk to me like a civilized person so we could reach a reasonable agreement?"

"Mother Earth would never leave anything to chance," Toothiana explained, "if she thought you might say no, she would have tried to manipulate the situation so that you wouldn't be able to refuse."

Elsa bristled, a new kind of anger blossoming in her chest. Mother Earth took advantage of her sister's death to whisk her away into a war Elsa wanted no part of.

"But I'm still human," Elsa argued, "she can't just force me to do things against my will, like marrying Frost."

Toothiana bit her lip, but Elsa didn't notice as the cogs turned in her head.

"Jack said that he used to be human," Elsa turned to Toothiana, and this time she didn't miss the fairy's flinch, "why?"

Toothiana busied herself with picking up the tray with the leftovers of their breakfast. The fairy attempted to leave quickly, but Elsa stepped in between the door and Tooth, blocking her way.

"I really can't talk about this anymore," Toothiana tried to excuse herself, but Elsa didn't relent.

"Jack told me he used to be half-human and half not. And you just said that Mother Earth would never leave anything to chance. Leaving him half-human would be leaving a lot of things to chance," the former queen listed.

"If I tell you what you want to hear, Mother Earth will wipe my fairies off the face of the Earth, so forgive me if I would rather protect them," Toothiana snapped, shocking Elsa into silence. The former queen had never thought Tooth could get that angry, "I once tried to help Jack get out of her clutches and she made sure to show me how bad a choice that was. I left and didn't come back for seventy years. I want to help you, I really do, but Mother Earth is not someone you want as your enemy. Excuse me."

Toothiana then flew past Elsa and out the door, which slammed shut. The former queen, however, was smart enough to realize she had caught onto something. If she could figure out what that something was, maybe she would be able to get out of this mess. One thing was clear though: Mother Earth somehow got rid of Jack's human half. Chances are she was going to try the same with her.

Elsa could not, under any circumstances, allow that to happen.

* * *

While Elsa and Toothiana were having a friendly conversation over breakfast, Mother Earth summoned Jack Frost to her den. Jack didn't particularly like going there because, being Mother Earth, her den was nearly at the center of it. It was unbearably hot for any normal person, but he was an embodiment of winter, so every time he went there he hoped not turn into a puddle. Still, Mother Earth could care less about his discomfort, so he kept it to himself.

Mother Earth was looking intently into a globe much like the one he had in his throne room at the Winter Palace.

"You summoned me?" the prince said, bowing low.

"Yes," Mother Earth turned towards him, "I wanted to know how much progress Elsa has made."

"Toothiana coaxed her into drinking and eating. They should be having breakfast right about now," Jack reported.

"Good. In that case, by the end of the week, Toothiana can return to her duties as the Tooth Fairy," Mother Earth declared.

Jack nodded, even though he had hoped Tooth would be allowed to stay longer.

"I also wanted you to go check on Pitch Black," Mother Earth ordered him.

Jack, again, nodded, "When?"

"Right now. Some whispers talk about Old Man Winter wanting to recruit him, and considering I trapped him where he is now, Pitch would be all too willing to join him," Mother Earth explained, "remember: whatever you do, or hear, do not open the door to his prison. What you need to do is reinforce the lock with this set of runes and create a perimeter with this other set of runes. The second one should alert me if Old Man Winter comes near."

Jack nodded, committing the runes to memory, and left right away to Pitch Black's prison. In hindsight, going there without having slept wasn't his brightest idea. As soon as he got there, he knew something was amiss. For starters, it was too cold, and while it felt good that the temperature dropped, Mother Earth kept it hot for a reason.

"Well, if it isn't Jack Frost," the silky voice of Pitch Black called from inside the cell, "to what do I owe the pleasure of your visit?"

"Just making sure you can't escape any time soon," Jack replied, going straight to the lock and carving the first set of runes on it.

"I wouldn't dream of it. Tell me, Jack," Pitch continued in a dangerously polite tone, the tone that made Jack's hackles rise, "that vial of sand I gave you… what was it used for?"

"It's none of your business," Jack answered without missing a beat, moving towards the four posters around the cage Pitch was locked in and carving the second set of runes in each of them.

"But it is, Jackie boy, after all, I found the way to turn my nightmares into sand just like the Sandman does with his dreams. I just want to know if they work properly," Pitch explained.

Jack, wisely, didn't reply.

"Come on, how can I know if I should make more if I don't know how effective it is?"

Jack moved on to the third post. The sooner he got this done, the sooner he could leave.

"Perhaps you would be willing to be the next test subject then," Pitch continued, and that really should have been Jack's warning. A thin tendril of black sand wrapped around his ankle, tripped him and dragged him towards the cage. Before Jack could even think of escaping, Pitch Black blew enough sand to knock out an elephant on his face, and Jack was out like a light. In an optimal situation, he would have reacted quickly, moved out of the way and neutralized the threat. This wasn't an optimal situation, for starters, because Jack was working on no sleep.

"Well done," a voice that sounded like ancient parchment flapping in the wind praised, and Old Man Winter stepped out of the shadows.

He looked at his son; the son he never knew he had until Mother Earth found the boy and turned him against Old Man Winter. Unfortunately, the boy was too far under Mother Earth's thumb now. Old Man Winter proceeded to crush the lock; despite the new runes carved in it, it was still ridiculously easy to break, and allowed Pitch Black to step out. Then, he grabbed his unconscious son and tossed him inside, closing the door and freezing it in place before Pitch took them through the shadows and into Old Man Winter's palace.

The ice wouldn't hold to Mother Earth's power. It wouldn't even hold to Jack's. Yet it would send them both a message.

Nobody messes with Old Man Winter.

* * *

Mother Earth found Jack two hours later when she noticed that his faithful servant never came back to report. Jack knew better than not reporting back to her after she gave him an order. So, feeling something had gone wrong, she went to Pitch Black's prison to discover what.

However, instead of finding Pitch, she found Jack passed out inside the Boogeyman's former cell. She immediately checked for Old Man Winter's presence, trying to find a trap or signs of an ambush. When she found none, she opened the door to the cell and examined Jack. The dark bags under his eyes even in his sleep were evidence that the same dark sand she had commissioned from Pitch had been used against the prince. She had no idea how much Pitch used, but considering that all her attempts to wake him failed, it had to have been a considerable amount.

She wondered if leaving him there to wake up alone would be a sufficient punishment for his failure. After a moment of deliberation, she went back to her den to adjust for these new developments, remembering to lock the door of the cage after her.

After all, that was what polite people did.

* * *

Being trapped in a nightmare wasn't fun.

Being trapped in a nightmare you couldn't wake up from was even worse.

Every time Jack thought it couldn't get worse, or that surely this would wake him up, he was sucked into another nightmare that managed to be worse than the last.

Time lost all its meaning. Jack couldn't tell right from left, up from down, and he wondered if he was going insane. After the third nightmare, he forgot he was asleep.

He went back in time, to his long-buried memories of living in the tiny village with his dad, his mom and his sister. Back then he was just Jack. Sometimes he was trickster Jack, but just Jack, the farm boy. He was happy back then, and carefree, until he wasn't.

The peaceful breakfast he'd been eating was suddenly crawling with bugs. His mom had slumped on the table, a blue tint on her skin. His sister was staring at him with dead, unseeing eyes. Then his father came at him with a pitchfork, and fire. And Jack burned. He burned on the pyre, or on a barn, or inside the family home which was set aflame by angry villagers. His father scorned him, cursed him, and attempted to kill him with all sorts of knives.

Then, the nightmare faded into a new one. This time he was on a lake. He was still a child; his family had been dead for over a year, and this lady who had saved him was watching him from the shore of the frozen lake. Suddenly, there was a crack, and Jack fell. He was drowning. He could see the moon on top of him, but the water was so cold, and he couldn't swim. His lungs filled with water, and when he tried to scream, bubbles floated up to the surface without a sound. It felt like he was burning while he was also encased in ice. The moon slowly faded from his view, leaving him alone in the dark.

The darkness then faded into the Winter Palace. It was barren, like it had always been, and he was alone. Toothiana had left last week, and until then, he hadn't realized how much he had liked her company. He roamed the halls of the empty palace because there was nothing else to do until Mother Earth came to him with a new mission. The loneliness was crushing; he cried and called out for someone, anyone, but nobody answered. Jack felt that if he were to die right then and there no one would care and no one would know.

Then he heard humming. He went to the ballroom to find a blonde, blue eyed woman dancing alone. He recognized her: Elsa. She was inviting him to dance, and he, clumsily, tried to keep up. She looked up at him with those beautiful, big, blue eyes of hers, and Jack felt his heart throb.

"Why did you lie to me, Jack?" she asked him sweetly, her tone betraying her words.

"I had to. I didn't have a choice," he answered.

Her countenance turned angry and she pushed him away, "Liar. You lied to me. You knew my sister was alive and you kept it from me. You let Mother Earth use me. I hate you, Jack! I hate you!"

Jack begged for her forgiveness, but she would have none of it.

She took a knife from somewhere, and without warning, plunged it into her stomach. Jack tried to save her, but she died there, in his arms, bleeding out.

"I would rather die than being with you," her corpse told him.

He scrambled away from it, only to lose his footing and fall… and fall… and fall…

* * *

Elsa didn't know what to feel about Jack Frost.

His 'only following orders' grated at her, but after her talk with Toothiana, she realized that he might have been give very little choice. How would she have grown up if she'd been thrust in this situation as an eleven-year-old girl instead of a twenty-one-year-old woman? If she really wanted someone to be angry at, Mother Earth was the perfect target.

That didn't erase the fact that Jack had deceived her. He befriended her on false pretenses, and now that she thought about it, he only returned after months of not contacting her when she was vulnerable and her only choice would be Mother Earth. If that was the case… then…

Anna didn't need to die.

Elsa's heart panged with grief that left her breathless. She cried and yelled before tearing the curtains down and breaking the mirror in her vanity. She yanked at her hair, not knowing how to cope with the intense anger and hatred festering in her gut.

She lashed out with her powers, coating the room with at least ten extra inches of ice, until she was left spent and panting from exertion.

Did Jack know Anna didn't have to die? Was he watching her while she struggled with her powers? She looked for the necklace under her dress and tore it from her neck. She then proceeded throw it far away from her. She had to find him, and get to the bottom of this. She was tired of lies. Elsa would get the truth out of Frost or die trying.

With her mind made up, she tried to open the doors to her chambers only to find she still couldn't do it. With a cry of rage, she blasted them out of its hinges and left with the intention of getting answers.

"Elsa," Toothiana called from behind her, but Elsa didn't turn, "what's going on?"

Elsa rounded up on the fairy. As if Toothiana hadn't known what Mother Earth had planned for her. "You," she spat, making the fairy recoil, "and everyone in this place. I am tired of lies, so I'm going to find Frost and get my answers."

"Elsa, you have to calm down," Tooth placated. It reminded Elsa so much of what her father used to say, that she got angry enough for her powers to explode outwards again.

"Don't tell me to calm down," Elsa ground out and resumed her search of the prince, "where is he?"

"I don't know," Toothiana started.

"Don't lie to me," Elsa seethed.

"I'm not!" Toothiana screeched, halting right in front of the furious queen and making her stop, "He said Mother Earth summoned him and has been gone since."

Elsa, frustrated, yelled and blasted a wall to her left.

"When is he coming back?" she demanded.

"I don't know," Tooth answered, "it depends on what Mother Earth asked him to do. He should be back by nightfall, though."

Elsa exhaled through her teeth.

"Okay, I can wait until nightfall," Elsa reluctantly agreed, much to the relief of the fairy.

Toothiana looked around her, "You wouldn't mind putting the wall back together, would you?"

"As a matter of fact, I would," Elsa replied as she walked away from her prison cell even if she had no idea where she was going, "if Mother Earth and Frost insist on keeping me a prisoner, then they will have to deal with the consequences."

"What happened to make you so angry?" Tooth asked, and the '_you weren't like this when I left you'_ was heavily implied.

"Oh, nothing, I just discovered that Frost might have been very aware of what was happening in my kingdom, sat back and let it happen," Elsa bit out, "nothing major."

Toothiana sighed. She had been expecting the queen to get angry eventually, but she never suspected Elsa would get angry enough to destroy half of the Winter palace.

"What gave you that idea?"

"You, actually," Elsa answered, and Tooth flinched, "you said that Mother Earth doesn't leave anything to chance, and it seems too much of a coincidence that Frost showed up just after Anna became an ice statue. They had to have known… worse, they had to have watched."

Tooth didn't reply. She, at least, had the decency of not trying to defend their misdeeds. She wondered if their scheming would ever stop.

"I'm sorry," the fairy finally said, "I know it doesn't mean much. And I know I shouldn't be the one to say it; but I am truly sorry that you were dragged into this."

Elsa barked out a bitter laugh, but otherwise didn't reply.

After walking, read: stomping, aimlessly for about ten minutes in total silence, Elsa's steam ran out. She stopped dead in her tracks, heaving, as tears pricked behind her eyelids.

"What are the chances that he knew and let it happen anyway?" Elsa whispered so low that Tooth almost didn't catch it.

"If it was an order, the chances are pretty high."

"Could he have done anything for Anna?"

"What happened to her? I mean, you didn't give me any specifics and I didn't want to ask," Tooth awkwardly scrambled to explain.

"I… my powers lashed out and froze her heart," Elsa confessed, but Toothiana didn't miss how it differed from the last time she made the same confession.

Toothiana's voice was soft when she answered, the way she would speak to a spooked cornered animal.

"I don't know if Jack could have done something to save her, but there is a huge library in the next hallway, so there might be something there."

Elsa nodded and resumed walking; neither of them spoke the rest of the way.

* * *

The library was, indeed, huge. Not only in the amount of books and scrolls there, but also the size of said books and scrolls. Some of them were as tall as Elsa.

"Who reads these books?" Elsa asked in awe, momentarily forgetting her current mission.

"All sorts of creatures," Toothiana replied easily, "the Winter Court was made of yetis, sprites, snow fairies, you name it. Here, as the convening point of the court, you can find books for all of them."

"Impressive," Elsa begrudgingly admitted, "where are the human sized books, then?"

"Over here," Toothiana led Elsa through endless rows of books in which saw more books that she would be able to read in ten lifetimes. One of them was the size of her pinky finger. Finally, they arrived at a normal sized section of the books and started looking for clues.

They spent hours reading tome after tome, but none of the books they read through knew how to explain her powers nor how they worked. One book did mention that frozen hearts were perfect for a rejuvenating potion, and other had a poem about the Winter King freezing a maiden's heart after she rejected him, but Elsa was sure that was just a folk song. Even if it wasn't, it only mentioned the maiden's death and didn't explain anything else.

When the sun was setting, they left the library and decided to return the next day. Elsa still wanted to talk to Frost, so she asked Tooth to point her in the right direction. Tooth took Jack to the throne room, where Jack usually spent his time, but it was empty. Elsa was mildly captivated by the giant globe in the middle of the room; it had blue lines zig-zagging all over. The top was colored in different hues of reds and yellows, while the bottom was colored in different hues of blues.

Toothiana explained that it monitored the seasons around the world; if a part of the bottom suddenly started to color bright red, Jack would need to go and fix the disturbance. Tooth thought Jack might have gone to deal with one of those disturbances, but everything seemed to be in order.

They waited until the moon was high in the sky and then some more.

Jack didn't return that night... or the next... or the next.

* * *

**Author's Note: Wow, this was a pretty intense chapter. I would love to know what you think about it, so please leave a kind review.**


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